The Strangest Sea
by mondegreeneyed
Summary: Sybil promised Branson an answer when the war ended. A story of the ceasefire in eleven parts.


**The Strangest Sea**

1.

"I thought you'd like to know… that the war is over."

He had known it was coming, had anticipated it with greater force than he had known possible, but when it finally arrived the news washed over Branson slowly. Certainly he felt the excitement of the others, the relief of the long and hard four years coming to a close. He might disagree with fighting for the freedom of a country that did not allow his own homeland its freedom, but Tom Branson did not begrudge the efforts of the men who fought and the enormous sacrifices they made.

But Lord Grantham's words meant so much more than that. She had promised him an answer when the war was done. At last, an answer.

He told himself it didn't matter what the answer was; that if he she rejected him it would be better to know than not. Now that an answer seemed so close, though, he wasn't sure that was true. Years and years of waiting, of living for every stolen moment, of reading secret meaning into every interaction. After all that, the answer had to be yes. He wasn't sure what he would do if it wasn't.

As he clicked glasses with Anna he smiled not because the war was over and won but because his own private battle might finally be reaching a turning point. She had asked how long he would wait and he had said forever, but he hadn't been entirely truthful. They both knew there would come a time when he would leave or she would. The only way to fight it was to choose to leave together.

"The ceasefire will begin at eleven on the morning of the eleventh."

Eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. What was the word Thomas had used? Tidy. A tidy start for a new life.

2.

His mother had said that he could talk St. Peter down from heaven. From the time he was able to talk he had rarely stopped. He hadn't seen a reason to stop. Often his constant talk got him his way.

Branson knew that some considered him stubborn and prideful, far too prideful for a boy from the Liffey Quays. He didn't care about his reputation for speaking his mind. Better to be heard than to be dumb all your life.

In his situation at Downton, and in his relationship with the girl he found there, words were his only weapons and the only gifts he had to give. He had gotten the impression when they first met that she was hungry for words, for whole conversations, for a friend who would not simply listen but spar with her, respond in any way but gentle acquiescence. He had tried to be that friend to her, but he knew on the evening of the Count as he paced outside the Crawley home, desperate for news of her welfare, that he was falling in love with her.

Later, after he was certain that she would recover, and still after that, when he learned from the other servants that she had threatened to run away if her actions had cost him his job, he had laughed. Laughed because he had fallen in love with the person he'd never dreamed he could love, a girl with all the money and opportunities in the world, all the opportunities he'd never had growing up hardscrabble in a dirty city. Yet even with all that money and all those opportunities, she had remained aware of the world around her, attuned to the lives of others who were less fortunate. She was curious and funny and desperately _alive_, and he lived for those moments when he could be near her.

He knew it was a fool's cause. He knew it before he spoke, before he told her he'd like to spend every day living for her and providing for her when he left her at the training school. He knew it after, when he wallowed in his bitterness for months before realizing one magical fact: _she hadn't said no_. And it wasn't as if Sybil was one of those girls who couldn't say no to any one. He knew if she had absolutely decided against him she would say so. And so he chose to let the bitterness subside, chose to continue on in his work, chose to let her know that his feelings hadn't—couldn't—change, and that he'd be there if her feelings ever did.

"I'm not asking for forever. Just a few more weeks."

He had recalled her words so many times in the days since she'd spoken them that at some moments they lost their meaning, became mere syllables that signified his greatest hope. _A few more weeks_. Surely she couldn't make him wait all that time only to say no.

Surely now, at long last, she would have to be the one to speak.

3.

When Papa relayed the news of the ceasefire during dinner, Sybil at first sat in stunned silence. It was unquestionably good news, the very best news they could receive, yet her heart did not know how to respond. As Mama kissed Papa and Cousin Isobel proclaimed the war's end "a triumph," Sybil felt Edith beside her, equally tense and breathless. Sybil reached for her sister's hand and squeezed it.

"My dear girls," said the dowager countess, noticing her granddaughters' stillness all the more in opposition to the boisterousness of the others. "Is this not good news? You look as though the Kaiser had won the wretched thing!"

"Of course it's good news, Granny," said Sybil. "Only I cannot help but wonder what happens now. Those men in the other wing are just as broken as they ever were." She saw Cousin Matthew wince out of the corner of her eye but continued on. "The war ending won't make them any better. And what of all the nurses who've found work here during the war?"

"Why, they'll go back to their villages and find nice men to look after, just as they've looked after the men here. They've been learning invaluable skills."

"Oh, Granny, you can't think it's that easy, can you?"

"Sybil, dear," interjected Lord Grantham, sensing his mother's growing ire, "we all realize there's an immense amount of work to do to return the country to normalcy. We owe everything to those young men, and those nurses, too. I assure you they won't be forgotten. But perhaps we could place those concerns aside for one moment and be content with the end of battle?"

Sybil stared into her napkin. Tears were forming in the corners of her eyes for reasons she couldn't name. Edith placed an arm around Sybil's shoulders and guided her to stand.

"This is wonderful news," said Edith, "but I'm afraid Sybil and I are quite tired from nursing today. We shall say good night."

Sybil wiped her eyes as she and Edith left the dining room. She could hear her grandmother exclaiming something about "those impossible girls!" as they departed, but she didn't care. She wasn't a girl any longer, no matter how much her family wanted to believe her one. They wanted her safely tucked away from the real troubles of the world, but that was all over; it had been over for a long time now.

"Thank you for taking me out of there," Sybil said to Edith as they began to climb the stairs to their rooms. "You understand how I feel, don't you? That a ceasefire isn't magically going to cure the world of its ills? Hundreds of thousands of men are dead either way, on both sides. And the thing I fear most is that we'll all go back to how things were before the war and forget everything we've learned about hate and barbarity."

Edith smiled sorrowfully. "I do understand. Things have changed for good and if Mama and Papa and all the others don't realize it we're all in desperate trouble."

Sybil gazed at her sister, who seemed to have aged five years in the last few days. Love for the broken soldier, whoever he was, had changed her, too.

Sybil thought of her own broken soldier. His war was not the same as Edith's soldier's war, but he would go down fighting nonetheless.

And now, she owed him an answer.

4.

Branson sat at the long table in the kitchen staring into his cup of tea, his third of the evening. After a joyful dinner, more toasts, and a few rounds of dancing with Jane at the piano, most of the downstairs staff had gone off into their rooms for the night.

Years ago he had been to a carnival outside Dublin where there was a gypsy who read tea leaves. Prodded by a village girl he'd thought pretty at the time (how unrefined all the girls of his past seemed compared with Lady Sybil), he'd entered the tent and paid a shilling to have a woman who smelled of rose water tell him his future. He remembered that she'd seen a heart ("a lover," the woman had smiled) but it was cloudy, indistinct. "She may prove false," the fortune teller had said. "You must protect yourself."

_A cloudy heart_, Branson mused. It was almost funny to think of now. He hadn't expected then, as he had laughingly related the tale to his sweetheart, that the fortune would prove the literal truth.

The sound of footsteps interrupted his reverie. Anna appeared in the doorway looking surprised to find him. "Oh, Mr. Branson, I didn't realize you were still here. I thought someone had forgotten to turn out the kitchen light."

Branson smiled at the maid. She was easily his favorite of the other staff; she was true, and honest, and kind, and Branson couldn't help but wondering to himself at times why he couldn't have fallen for a woman like Anna, a woman of his own station with whom he could build a life. When he had began reading Milton one cold night the year before he had stopped at the phrase "upright heart and pure" and thought, _that's Anna through and through_.

"I'm dawdling," Branson said in explanation. "Can't seem to imagine sleeping tonight, somehow."

"I know what you mean," Anna said, wrapping her shawl around her shoulders more tightly. "Well, if you don't mind shutting off the light when you leave, I'll leave you to your thoughts."

"Anna," said Branson. "Maybe it's none of my business, but you and Bates?" Anna nodded, encouraging the chauffeur to go on. "Would you do it again—fall in love with him, I suppose I mean—if you knew what you know now about his wife and his divorce and all that heartache to come?"

Anna smiled, her eyes sad but not defeated. "Yes, Mr. Branson, I undoubtedly would. Do you think me a fool?"

"Not at all. Not in the slightest."

"Thank you." Anna moved as if to leave the kitchen but stopped and turned back. "Do you have someone, Mr. Branson?"

Tom paused. There were times when he suspected she knew about him and Sybil—Anna often seemed to perceive things around the house as if by intuition—but she'd never said anything about it to him. He knew that Anna had found the note he had left for Sybil before his planned dinner interruption more than a year ago but she had never asked why he had written to Sybil in such an informal way, and he had never offered an explanation. He decided he couldn't lie to her, not even knowing that she spent so much time with the Crawley girls and might give him away, or worse, know enough about Sybil's true feelings to crush his dream.

"Yes, there is someone, Anna. She's beautiful and kind and brilliant, and I would do anything to be with her."

"Does she know you feel that way?" said Anna, quietly.

"She does. I can't seem to keep anything back from her," Tom said with an apologetic smile.

"And how does she feel in return?"

"It's complicated. There's… a lot of good reasons why she shouldn't be with me, but she hasn't turned me down for good."

"Then you have hope?"

"I do. It may be the death of me, but I do. Do you think that's wise?"

Anna composed herself before speaking. "I think that love and wisdom rarely meet as old friends. You're a smart man, Mr. Branson, and a good one. You must do what you think is best for you, but also what's best for her."

"What if those aren't the same thing?"

Anna shrugged. "If you truly love her you'll know what to do. In time." She smiled gently as she left the room, wishing him good night.

He closed his eyes as she went.

5.

That night Sybil turned in bed, her mind a kaleidoscope of words and images. Men she'd tended with blown-off faces and hands, men whose eyes told her everything she needed to know about death and life and desperation. _It's over, it's all over_, she repeated internally, but the images would not fade.

In time they were replaced with other scenes: the humble garage where she spent some of the best hours of the last few years, the place where she'd escape when the hospital became too much. He had never turned her away, not even when it was clear that her presence caused him pain. They would sit or stand, sometimes for mere minutes, sometimes for nearly an hour. He would relay news from the front read in newspapers; she would relay news from the front overheard in the soldiers' quarters of the house. She would complain about a lack of supplies for nursing the soldiers, or the lackadaisical attitude of another nurse. He would listen. He didn't believe in the war, but he believed in her.

Sybil remembered the one time he hadn't believed in her. They'd been arguing, having the same argument they had every time they argued (which thankfully was seldom). He wanted her to leave with him. She couldn't do it. And then he'd said the awful thing about her nursing—what was it he'd called it? _Bringing hot drinks to randy officers_. She had run away from him, stunned. She knew he had a temper, but it was usually directed toward social injustices, never her.

He had come to her a few days later, just before the concert for the officers planned by Edith and Mary, looking sheepish, ashamed. They stepped under a stairwell away from the crowd of concert attendees. His apology had come out in one long mess of words: "I'm sorry for what I said about your nursing. You know that I know you're a wonderful nurse—the very best, so far as a layman like me can tell. I was angry at this whole… situation… and I took it out on you, and I'm sorry. But I can't help but tell you that I think you are wasting your efforts at Downton sometimes. These men are officers, and recovering. I remember seeing how much you helped those mortally wounded men in Ripon, at the hospital. You were really healing those young soldiers, and I've never seen you more alive. I thought you should know that. And I also owe you an apology for dismissing the sacrifice you'd make to be with me." (He'd lowered his voice here, Sybil remembered.) "It's a massive thing I'm asking of you. It's more than any man ought to ask any woman, particularly a man like me who's so…"

Sybil had looked at him as he fumbled for an adjective. "Any way, I don't want you to think I'm ignorant of your ties to your family and your home. You wouldn't be the woman you are if you felt differently."

Branson had smiled a little then, and said, "I think those are all the apologies I owe you for one evening."

As Sybil drifted into a fitful sleep, her mind fixated on the blue eyes of her unexpected suitor.

When she awoke the next day she knew she'd dreamt of surrender but didn't know which one.

6.

Tom Branson opened his eyes to bright sunshine coming through his cottage window, the last vestiges of what had been a golden autumn. He sat in bed as his eyes adjusted to the light, and as he surveyed the room around him something white caught the corner of his eye. It was a piece of paper sticking out from under the door to his cottage. For half a second he thought it might be from Sybil.

Heart stilled in his chest, he crossed the room to pick up the piece of paper and read:

_I was reminded of this the other night after we spoke. I hope Emily will be of comfort to you as she has been to me. –A.S._

_Hope is the thing with feathers  
>That perches in the soul,<br>And sings the tune without the words,  
>And never stops at all,<em>

_And sweetest in the gale is heard;_  
><em>And sore must be the storm<em>  
><em>That could abash the little bird<em>  
><em>That kept so many warm.<em>

_I've heard it in the chilliest land_  
><em>And on the strangest sea;<em>  
><em>Yet, never, in extremity,<em>  
><em>It asked a crumb of me.<em>

He put the note down and went about getting ready for the day. He warmed a kettle on the small stove, took his pressed shirt down from the rack where it hung, and washed his face in the basin, the water bracingly cold from the overnight chill. _Winter will be here in no time,_ he thought.

Lord Grantham had asked all the staff to meet in the great hall that day to commemorate the ceasefire. As Branson left the cottage he tucked Anna's note into the pocket of his uniform. The words of the poem rang in his head until they achieved a kind of mystic meaningfulness.

_Hope is the thing. Never stops at all._

7.

Sybil took a long look at herself in the mirror.

As she smoothed her apron and tied her headscarf, she realized how her nurse's uniform had become a second skin in the last two years. It was the mark that showed she was not above hard work, the sign that allowed soldiers and doctors to trust her in spite of her easy upbringing. And inevitably, looking at her familiar uniform in the reflection, it made her think of him.

The first time he saw her in her nurse's wear was when he came to retrieve her from training in York. Two months before he had offered himself to her and she'd refused him—or not so much refused him as not answered him. She had been blindsided by the proposal, unaware that any man could think of her in such passionate terms. She had known that Branson was fond of her, and certainly she looked forward to their time in the car or in town. Their familiarity and ease of interaction was perhaps exemplified in their exchange of books. He gave her philosophers—Hume, Hegel—and Dr. Johnson's _Rasselas_. She gave him novels—_Persuasion_ (her favorite Austen, the most "autumnal", she'd said), _Waverley_. She thought he might like Gaskell's _North and South_ because of the political element; he agreed that the struggle of the workers was nicely rendered but hated the "treacly ending."

After months of testing his taste to ensure he was worthy the gift, she loaned him her own dog-eared copy of _Jane Eyre_.

"You must take good care of Jane," she'd said, as if she were putting her sister in his care.

He returned it to her on a trip to Ripon a week later. "And?" she'd said expectantly.

"And I see now why you love your Jane. She's a finely wrought creature, and never afraid to speak her mind. Only I think she could've done better than that mopey Mr. Rochester."

Sybil had exclaimed something to express disgust at the thought.

"I knew you'd feel that way," Branson smiled. "Only I think it's a shame that Jane will spend the rest of her life shut away tending after that man and their child. A girl that bright should be out in the world, making a difference."

"There are many ways to make a difference," Sybil replied. "Jane was happy. She loved him. Sometimes that's all that matters."

Branson said nothing in return.

All that seemed so long ago now.

When he'd come to collect her from training in York, she'd not known how to act around him. Would he be angry? Distant?

But he had smiled when he'd seen her and complimented her uniform. "It becomes you," he'd said.

"I don't know about that. But it makes me look like a real and proper nurse, even if I do not _feel_ like one."

"You'll be a wonderful nurse, I'm sure of it."

She'd known then that they would be all right. And she'd guessed, when he'd bring her sandwiches at the hospital in town and spend what short breaks she could take listening to her stories of death and frustration, that he might still feel for her the way he'd felt before. And though she didn't know if she felt exactly the same, she'd welcomed his friendship and devotion.

One bright day in spring as the war neared its close, when she was returning to the house from one of their conversations in the garage, she'd realized: _He's my best friend_.

It was a comforting thought, and yet not quite a true one. He was more than just that. They were more together.

On that morning of the ceasefire, Sybil looked into the mirror and reminded herself she was a rational creature. She could stay at her home, or she could leave with him. If she stayed and rejected him, he would surely leave. Her future broke down easily into two paths: without him or with him. It was that simple—that awful.

She gazed into the mirror with need, as if she believed it held the answer. But the mirror held no visions. Only her.

8.

At last the hour came. Eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Sybil stood in the great hall, lost in her thoughts, barely remembering to breathe as Papa spoke to those gathered: "I think while the clock strikes we should all make a silent prayer to mark the finish of this terrible war and what that means for each and every one of us. Let us remember the sacrifices that have been made and the men who will never come back, and give them our thanks."

Then the clock rang. _One_. _Two_. _Three_.

Papa had asked for a prayer but Sybil did not bow her head. She looked forward with purpose. She watched the others.

This had been a favorite game when she was small and she had attended the village church every Sunday with her family. During the long and monotone prayer, she would open her eyes to watch the people kneeling around her. It had seemed an insight into another world, a world that only she could see.

Now, she looked for him. He was standing to her left with the other servants, his green uniform freshly pressed, his gaze straight ahead. She hoped, perhaps, that he would find her eyes in this moment of quiet and solitude, but his look remained steady and emotionless. They hadn't seen much of each other since the ceasefire was announced, and their few interactions had been officious. _He's letting me have my time_, Sybil realized. Even after all this time, even after promising him an answer, he was still deferring, still letting her steer their futures.

_How he must love me_, Sybil thought as the clock struck eleven.

_How I love him_, Sybil thought, as her father pronounced the dawning of a new age.

9.

Lord Grantham's parting words echoed in Branson's head as he followed the house servants through the front parlor and continued out the main door. "It's the dawn of a new age." He would soon be needed to drive Isobel Crawley back to town. He had never minded Mrs. Crawley; she and Matthew both struck him as lacking all the gentrified affectations that the Crawleys (save his beloved Sybil) put on. As they were driving, Isobel often asked him about his upbringing in Ireland and his thoughts on the war. _She's the one Crawley I wouldn't mind having as an in-law_, he would think wryly as he they conversed.

As Tom rounded the corner of the house, heading toward the garage to bring 'round the car, a voice sounded behind him.

"Branson?"

He turned. "Yes, m'lady?"

Sybil looked taken aback at his formality. She smiled, as if to force them back into a state of friendly relations. "Goodness. You haven't 'm'ladied' me in quite some time."

He shrugged. "It's habit, I suppose."

She looked at her feet. "That was a lovely ceremony, wasn't it?"

"It was. And it was kind of your father to let us—us downstairs folk, I mean—all join in."

Sybil stared at Tom. She felt him holding back from her, refusing to participate in the little games and rhythms they'd developed through years of friendship and, she could admit, flirtation. At that moment he seemed older to her than he'd ever seemed before.

He interrupted her thoughts with a question.

"So what happens now?"

"What do you mean?"

"The war's over. Downton won't be needed as a hospital anymore. What will you do?"

His eyes were large and moon-like in their fullness. Sybil knew he wasn't simply asking about her nursing—he wanted to know if she'd made up her mind about him. She couldn't lie to him, no matter how much she wanted to, how much she didn't want to disappoint him. "I don't know. Truly, I don't." Emboldened by the high emotions of the day, she added, "It's not my feelings for you I'm unsure about—it's leaving my home, disappointing my family."

He nodded and turned away, but she called after him. "I know it's unfair, and I want you to know—you don't have to wait."

"I do," he replied, with a small, broken smile.

10.

Weeks passed, and Tom waited. He lived on the crumbs she fed him. _It's not my feelings for you I'm unsure about._ And the evening when she came to him and held his cheek in her hand and looked at him as if he were the only man in the world. She had said then she had almost made up her mind. _Almost_. He had been hopeful when she'd said it but the word acquired a bitter taste as the days went on and still he had no answer.

In the papers he read about the building tenor of unrest in Ireland, of the officers killed in Tipperary. He read at a strange remove, knowing that he could not (would not) do anything to help until she gave him her blessing, one way or another.

He read at a remove, too, a letter telling him that a young cousin had died of influenza. He remembered her as a pink-cheeked girl. He hadn't seen her in five years. She would stay that frozen girl to him, even though she'd died a teenager.

He thought about the strange stasis of his life. And, for the first time, he allowed himself to envision a future without her. He would return to Ireland. He would fight, using words or actions, whichever was needed more. He would care for his mother. He would meet a woman who sounded like him and marry her and have children. He would probably, nearly, be happy.

Sometimes he thought of Anna's poem, but the ending, not the beginning. _Sore must be the storm that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm._

He would lie in bed at night and think the words and still, in spite of everything, see her.

_I've heard it in the chilliest land and on the strangest sea; yet, never, in extremity, it asked a crumb of me._

11.

Sybil sat at the dinner table and wondered if the war had been a dream. Mama was quizzing Mary and Carlisle over their plans for Haxby Hall while Papa described his discussed his intention to renovate several rooms of the house now that they were no longer needed for the convalescent home. Matthew and Lavinia announced their plans to marry at Downton. Life was moving on.

Sybil thought she might scream. In a way she envied their ability to return to the way things had always been, but mostly she felt like shaking them and telling them that after the war, nothing could ever be the same again. _Certainly I cannot_, she thought.

"Such a pity that the influenza has everyone avoiding the city. I thought you might go to London, Sybil dear, now that the war's done and spend some time with your Aunt Rosamund, seeing the town."

Sybil knew what Granny was hinting at. The war was done, the men were home, and it was time for her to get back on the marriage circuit. At 21, she was already lagging behind the other girls.

Since she could think of nothing nice to say in reply, Sybil said, "Quite the pity."

The dinner was one of thousands she'd had at this table, with these people and these conversations, yet somehow, that day and moment, it steeled her resolve. _This will not be my life_, she thought. _I have a choice_.

In her head she heard words that had echoed in her ears for some time: "Sometimes a hard sacrifice must be made for a future that's worth having. That's all I'm saying. That's up to you."

He was letting her choose. And she chose him.

After dinner the family left the dining room for the sitting room as they always did, and Sybil announced that she was going for a walk. "At this hour and in this cold? You'll catch your death!" Granny called after her, but she didn't answer. She walked directly out the front door and around the side of the house. She found him, the man who could give her nothing and everything, leaning against one of the cars in the garage, newspaper in hands. He stood as he saw her, folding the newspaper.

"You're very late. Won't they worry?"

"They're all so excited they won't care where I am."

Sybil approached Tom in their familiar, electric way and told him how Matthew's impending wedding made her feel the war was truly done.

Branson took a deep breath. His blue eyes danced but his body was perfectly still. She stepped close. His lips moved silently as if they were reciting something, a mantra or a prayer.

_Hope is the thing. _

"Do you mean you've made your decision?" he breathed.

"Yes," she answered. _Yes_.


End file.
